Institute for Research in Biomedicine and Barcelona Supercomputing Center, c/Baldiri i Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Trends Pharmacol Sci. 2010 Mar;31(3):115-23. doi: 10.1016/j.tips.2009.11.006. Epub 2010 Feb 1.
Network and systems biology offer a novel way of approaching drug discovery by developing models that consider the global physiological environment of protein targets, and the effects of modifying them, without losing the key molecular details. Here we review some recent advances in network and systems biology applied to human health, and discuss how they can have a big impact on some of the most interesting areas of drug discovery. In particular, we claim that network biology will play a central part in the development of novel polypharmacology strategies to fight complex multifactorial diseases, where efficacious therapies will need to center on altering entire pathways rather than single proteins. We briefly present new developments in the two areas where we believe network and system biology strategies are more likely to have an immediate contribution: predictive toxicology and drug repurposing.
网络和系统生物学通过开发考虑蛋白质靶标的全局生理环境以及修饰它们的影响而不失关键分子细节的模型，为药物发现提供了一种新的方法。在这里，我们回顾了网络和系统生物学在人类健康方面的一些最新进展，并讨论了它们如何对药物发现最有趣的一些领域产生重大影响。特别是，我们声称网络生物学将在开发新的多效性策略以对抗复杂的多因素疾病方面发挥核心作用，在这种疾病中，有效的治疗方法将需要集中在改变整个途径而不是单个蛋白质上。我们简要介绍了我们认为网络和系统生物学策略更有可能做出直接贡献的两个领域的新进展：预测毒理学和药物再利用。
